Dead Horse Reporting

R

ecent reports from Montana F & G indicate quite a few road kill deer are now being utilized for meat since the legislature made it legal a short time back and though the report did not say so, it is apparently legal to keep horns provided the proper paperwork is done. A satirical column published here in 2004 may have started certain people thinking about the wasted game of the old “no no” days. This is it:

There is a dead horse on the north side of the highway between East Glacier and Browning. Shan and I saw it last Sunday and it reminded me of things you drivers need to know.

Every time you kill a horse with your vehicle on a road, you must report it to law enforcement right away. Contrary to popular ideas, this is not one of those things you can just keep shrugging off. Those of you who have been running into horses and not telling anybody, are just asking for trouble. Everyone knows there are times when any driver can hit and kill a horse out in a field, and in those cases reporting could be delayed, depending upon who owns the horse … prevailing temperatures, wind direction … stuff like that; however, on a public road, do not delay.

It seems reasonable to assume the laws governing “dead horse reporting” also apply to other beasts such as elk, bears, cows, deer, pigs, mules, and buffalo. But, good reporters do not assume anything, so I called the Montana Highway Patrol headquarters in Helena. The lieutenant said the law requires reporting if the carcass you create “constitutes a hazard to traffic.” Next I asked, “Well OK, but where do you draw the line?” and he replied, “Right down the middle of the road. Ha ha ha.”

After we had finished chortling over this fun remark, I said. “I’m talking about the size of the carcass. For example, how about a middle-sized dog?” He said common sense must apply, for example, a long lean fifty-pound dog might not be a serious traffic hazard but a fifty-pound pig could flip a car … especially one of the smaller models.

Next call was to a state fish and game warden who said, “If you strike and kill a big game animal, the carcass should be dragged off the road.” That information seemed to fit with what the highway patrol said, but I did have this vision of a 75-year-old grandmother dragging a 700-pound bull elk off Highway 2 on the Nyack Flats.

Right after that is when the Fish and Game guy dropped the bomb. He said, “No George! If you should cream the world record buck deer with your car, during hunting season, and while carrying an unfilled license … you can not tag that animal.”

“The law is clear. All tagged big game animals must be taken by legal means, which means bow and arrow or guns during season.”

I then asked what was the reasoning behind not allowing car-killed deer to be tagged, and he said the department’s thoughts were, if that law wasn’t in effect, people would be deliberately trying to hit and kill big game with their vehicles.

My first reaction was to suppress a giggle; however, careful reflection made me realize it is a good law. Without such a restriction there would be a lot of people swerving across the center lines, careening over banks, dodging trees and high-centering on rocks in the pursuit of Bambi.

Yup! I guess it is best to leave things as they are. We are all accustomed to the fall bow and gun seasons, and the twelve-month “bumper season.”

But! There are now new twists to that nagging question, “What would I do if my old pickup should bag a ‘world record buck’ during hunting season?”

I’ll work on it.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning columnist for Hungry Horse News. He lives in Kalispell.